Site Mobile Navigation

Harry Potter’s Latest Adventure

Can Harry Potter’s magic lift the sagging fortunes of the United States Postal Service? That’s the 46-cent question posed by the service’s new first-class Forever stamp — a series of 20 stamps honoring the fictitious British lad and global pop culture icon. The stamps portraying characters and scenes from the best-selling Harry Potter books and movies are a measure of the resolve of the deficit-ridden Postal Service to appeal to consumers’ cultural preferences to generate revenue.

But in a plot development worthy of Hogwarts, the stamps’ printing was not cleared with the service’s 56-year-old Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee, a group of a dozen experts and passionate collectors who normally offer judgments as to whether new stamp choices — there are thousands of contenders each year — stand the test of time and appeal to the broad national interest.

Not only are members of the committee miffed that they were bypassed, but some question what an unreal, non-American wizard is doing on space traditionally devoted to grand American vistas and faces. “It’s foreign, and it’s so blatantly commercial it’s off the charts,” John Hotchner, former president of the American Philatelic Society, complained to The Washington Post. In reaching for commercial buzz, the service is shortchanging its mission to sell “the American story,” said Mr. Hotchner, who spent 12 years on the advisory committee.

In truth, Harry Potter’s bigger challenge is whether he can come anywhere close to the record-setting popularity of Elvis Presley, whose image sold 700 million stamps after they were issued 20 years ago. Bart Simpson’s stamp failed miserably four years ago, selling only a third of the billion printed, and Bart was a true-blue American.